Traitor to the Winning Side
by Kore-Proserpina
Summary: It was so easy to summon the hate to kill Dumbledore. I have known nothing else in my life, except for envy...and that is a thoroughly useless emotion.


This is simply a little drabble I wrote to get the juices flowing again. My little Angst!bunny wasn't happy being relegated to the corner, so I let him have his turn at the keyboard too, and he chose Stream-of-Conciousness for his style of choice. Many thanks go to my beta, Val, for spot-checking this for me.

Please...if you're feeling generous, drop me a review or kind word. It doesn't take much, but it'll make my day.

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**Traitor to the Winning Side**

It all began with Potter, Potter Senior and his aptly named cohorts, the Marauders…for they certainly took pleasure in plundering my childhood of any peace it might have otherwise contained.

Peace being a relative term of course, synonymous with heavy hands and wasted tears…

Now, here I sit, downing firewhiskey, trying to stay drunk enough not to feel, yet sober enough to answer the Dark Lord's summons, and summon us he will. I wonder if Narcissa has realized that she has condemned us all to death, herself included? I shall die for stopping Draco, that foolish boy for not delivering the killing blow, and Narcissa for second-guessing the Dark Lord's edicts.

It was so easy to summon the sheer hate to kill Dumbledore; I have known nothing else in my life, except for envy…and that is a thoroughly useless emotion. What would envy get me? Nothing—nothing except the realization that others, those ungrateful masses, have what I deserve. Why couldn't I have the glory—the praise—afforded others? What did I do to deserve otherwise?

Am I that unworthy?

Perhaps my father was right…perhaps they were all right. I sit here, looking at myself, and what do I see? A fool who amounted to nothing, despised by the world, and one with no legacy, other than infamy as a murderer, and being present in the nightmares of whinging little brats.

Ah, yes, I know what I did now…

I existed. Well, fancy that.

There is an expression I heard once:

"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,

courage to change the things we can,

and wisdom to know the difference."

Fools, the lot of them. How can you accept the inevitable, when the inevitable is your own painful demise? If I were to accept my death, I would end it right now, for there are many poisons without any antidotes…and blissfully painless. Yet, the easy route never suited me, and a poison is much too easy…and cravenly.

As for courage, I do not lack courage, as Potter so erroneously surmised. I simply am cursed with the mental capacity to realize that the little I can do will result in naught. I doubt he will even accept the help I hurled at him in those last pitiful moments…though it matters not. I fully accept that I deserve the title of 'Bastard Traitor' from their side.

If I were to accept this inevitability, what would become of Draco? If I die, his death is a conclusion swiftly to be met. The Dark Lord does not suffer failure, and never more than once, no matter your good name.

And what good is wisdom in this situation? No, the only wisdom would be to bide my time until the moment at which I shall stand at the right hand of the Dark Lord…and help end his accursed reign, or support him to the bitter end.

And bitter it shall be. I myself prefer that the world end in ice, for there is naught as blissful as a never-ending slumber. Of course, I could end what is left of _my_ world with a well placed drop of the Draught of Living Death…and that is 'a consummation devoutly to be wished…' But even I, a Death Eater, a traitorous bastard, and a double-agent set deep within the heart of the Dark Lord's camp, still fear death…even as much as I crave it.

Alas, it must all come back to Potter, the foolhardy Saviour of the Wizarding World… and my would-be executioner. Ha—executioner, indeed. The boy doesn't have it in him to kill, and _that_ is his weakness. You can whinge about the 'power of love' all you want. Look where love got me! If it wasn't for a 'mother's love' I wouldn't be here in this dilapidated hovel of mine, and I would have had a damned choice! Now my fate has been decided for me.

Draco is still whinging in the corner, Pettigrew is still scabbering around me, waiting for any sign of weakness to tell his master. I feel myself leaning dangerously close to apathy for my situation, for what choice do I have? Either way I choose, I still lose in the end.

No matter the outcome of this war, I must die—a traitor to the winning side.

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References include: 

"Hamlet," by William Shakespeare

An anonymous prayer

"Fire and ice," by Robert Frost


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